Looks like there's more good than bad from my initial suspicions of the leaked footage.

Alright peeps, I don't know who will take the time to read this, but I need to put this down.



Halo 5, as it looks now, is a pot of beef stew with rotten vegetables. That implies that I can see potential, but there needs to be major changes to the gameplay. What I am going to put below will probably have most of you agreeing with it. The others may stick to what they want.



Before reading the below, let this be known; This is my honest opinion on what should change and what should stay.



Sprint. This right here has been the greatest hassle to Halo's movement decisions, and should be removed by the full release. Even if it is nerfed again in this iteration of H5, it won't make the game truly shine if it stays. Instead, the movement should boost to 40% of the base movement we are familiar with in H1 and H2. This, along with a very responsive strafe, and the Thruster, would make this game damn good movement wise. Speaking of Thruster...



Thruster. One of the most interesting things you can do in a fight on H4 was boost to any direction, catching your enemy off guard. I like that it is back in H5, but sprint alongside it makes it less of a good tool. With faster movement, it can be more of a juking ability. The boost itself will probably be 20% less than the movement, but will decrease auto aim on yourself when performed. Also, using it in the air can open a window to crazy out-play scenarios.



Slide. Not as prevalent as I thought compared to the other things shown. Shouldn't exist.



Slam. I think instead of relying on Sprint to make this work, I think it should be what happens if you Thrust directly forward and press the melee button at the same time. It should change to a first person view and be easy to spot and dodge. If it connects, the enemy's shields and half their health is removed, along with a single second stun. However, the connect also means the player has a cool-down animation slightly longer than the enemy stun, to give smarter players a chance to fight back.



Clamber. It is an addition that ruins the skill of tactical jumping, along with spring jumping. I would suggest removing it, and making it instead a different Spartan Ability, Spring. This is activated when you crouch, jump, and press the Thrust button at the same time. The boost of the jump would be a 40% increase, but will make your Thruster cool down after 4 seconds. You reach higher ground at the cost of not using it again immediately.



Smart Scope. As it is now, it could use many changes. I would suggest a Plus/Minus system for each weapon when using Smart Scope, similar to how weapons functioned in H1 when having camo or the ability to stun. Examples would be BR having double the RRR, but you can't see the bottom area of the screen, or AR having a warning light for oncoming enemies but fires slower, etc. Things like that to increase the meta for each individual weapon.



Smash. Very impressed with how it works, but there could definitely be changes. One; instead of have to press the crouch button, I would suggest double tapping the Melee button and then float in the air for 2 seconds searching for a spot to land. Two; it should not kill a target when you land, rather it should copy the same idea for the Slam ability. These changes allow the ability to Ghandi Hop to still exist, and also give a higher risk to the reward.



Additional Changes I would like made.



-Auditory hitmarker along with the visual isn't good. Get rid of that.

-Power Weapon spawns should at the very least be 2 minute intervals.

-Spartans shouldn't be talking constantly. Should only give out callouts every thirty seconds, and only that when the player has no Mic.

-Decrease the amount of medals.

-Decrease the amount of new announcements.

-Remove Hovering while using Smart Scope.



So there you have it. In my opinion, this is what I think should happen. Then H5 can be a really fun game.

Dear halo scientists:

H5 BR killtime: 1.34s
H5 DMR killtime: 1.46s

Figures calculated frame by frame by Doju.

Too slow with sprint/thrust/reduced Aim assist.

3 minute snipers on Empire confirmed as well.

Fast paced arena shooter my arse.

Is it just me or should sword be on a faster timer as well? 4 mins seems long especially when you think of timers for other power weapons in relation to this. If there are other power weapons on the map that I'm not aware of then I can understand this.

The systems seems to be designed to have 1/1 pair of power weapons per map.

3/4 mins is just absurd regardless, its like they didnt want any at all but had to settle with very long timers

Not a fan.

3 min snipers and 4 min energy sword is absolutely nuts.

Energy sword comes up 3 times a match. Snipers four times. Wow. With a faster killing BR (and DMR with same killtime as h4) in h5 I'm curious why they wanted to slow down the weapon spawn times.

probably because the game plays like a **** storm. It just looks like a sloppy mess. Some cool ideas, but to convoluted. Just seems like they had a bunch of things they wanted to do and just did them. Completely ignoring how much backlash they received for trying to make the game like other console shooters. Forgetting what makes Halo special is the fact that is not like other console shooters. I guess I will be playing nothing but Overwatch when it comes to shooters in the future.

Remember when it comes to mechanics on an individual player basis less is more. If they want a variety of abilities make it class based and limit the number of abilities each class has.

Rant is Rant.

I'm glad you mentioned Overwatch - what an incredible looking new IP from Blizzard! I was thinking how cool an FPS game would be with lots of classes. Think of Smash Melee character selection within the FPS frame. Overwatch has a lot of TF2 and moba looking elements and requires tons of balance. Good thing Blizzard is making the game - they have the best balance philosophy / capabilities out there.

I'm glad that they realized that uneven starts, and rocket launchers falling from the sky, was complete trash, but this new movement system seems kinda awkward. Plus, the ground pound looks like it'll annoy the everlasting **** out of me.

I think they are doing some amazing things with that game as far as class diversity and balance. I honestly think its kind of unfair to compare to tf2 because it is doing the class based system on a whole other level. The only similarity I see with MOBA's are the classes themselves. I am honestly overly excited for the game. I am hoping based on Diablo 3 doing pretty well for consoles they will have this game be on console as well.

Having two slightly different versions of the same map in the game doesn't make much sense to me. One Midship re-imagination seems fine. Two seems like a bit much, especially when the 2nd re-imagination is just a twist on the first.

@chunk - I feel like Destiny does a great job to just alter the maps based on time of day and weather effects. 343 is taking that notion a step further by creating a different location in addition to new time of day. I'm not opposed to the concept as long as they provide a large number of maps from day 1.

@purely fat - I really wish this franchise comes to console. If its balanced then I could see myself finding a lot of enjoyment from it. I want to play a game that has multiple angles of strategy.

I hate Greenskull with a fiery passion, and all his idiot fans along with him. Them being taken seriously is the reason pre patch Halo Reach, Halo 4 and seemingly Halo 5 are such absolute piles of cancer. Medals for every single simple little action in the game says loads about their design direction and who they're catering to.

I don't think Halo 5 will turn out very well and I expect its population to decimate within half a year. The gimmicky bullshit is too much.

The Halo 5 Beta will include Spectator Mode
As a spectator, “you can go in and live-spectate on any of your friends’ matches in the Beta, [and] you can flip between first person and third person. So if you want to cast, you can go do that in a Twitch stream.”

Twitch streamers will be aggregated not only on Twitch’s website, but within the Halo Channel app on Xbox One. Holmes said 343 will “take streams from top players that are playing, and bundle them up and spotlight them so you can go into the Halo channel and browse through matches, and tune into that.”

Casters will be able to “rewind and fast-forward through the match, assuming that you’re tuning in if there’s a bit of a delay,” Holmes continued. “So if you want to go back and replay a specific moment, you can do that within the controls. We’re looking at deepening those controls for launch, but we want to get that there for Beta so we can put it in the hands of players.”



You can read the full article, which also comments on the Halo 5's ranking system, at IGN.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/12/10/halo-5-guardians-is-a-tailor-made-experience-for-esports?watch=&utm_campaign=ign main twitter&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

Footage from a never before seen Halo 5 map

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxbnx5jIK9-IZWlyU094NHBPUDA/view

And.....that video is gone.
You can check the footage out here instead. http://xboxdvr.com/?category=game&game=Halo 5: Guardians Beta

I've been shooting some tweets at Josh Holmes over the past few days, some of which he's answered. Here's a summary of it.

I asked about having slower ramp up to full velocity of sprint to better prevent people from abusing it to run away. He said they've played with different variables, but anything significantly longer than the current gives the feeling of input lag to the player (despite there not being actual input lag). However, in the current build players can get shot out of sprint if they have no reached full speed yet.

Personally, I think this is fair enough. I'd rather sprint be nerfed a bit more, but it isn't nearly as frustrating as it was in previous games... Still not a good mechanic, just a more bearable iteration of it I suppose.

I also asked if they could change thruster so that the player can shoot while thrusting. He shot this one down saying that would add too much of a "random" element to 1v1s (flat ground, no cover example), and is pretty much out.

Really don't get this one, but it's whatevs I suppose. I think of thruster as being similar to a dodge jump in UT. It's something to augment straffing. Oh well.

I also just tweeted him asking if, given the relationship between sprint and kill times, if we could have faster optimal kill times in the future of around 1.2s vs the current 1.4secs. I also stated that I specifically want it to only be fast optimal kill times and that the current average kill times are fine. Hoping he'll respond to this one as well.

Thoughts?